Translating the “catholics For Choice” statement about Pope Benedict

When Pope Benedict announced his abdication, the heretical “catholics for Choice” issued a statement. I didn’t want to sully my hands with it but someone else got out the little plastic bag and did the dirty work.

At the blog Acts of the Ashpostasy, we find a little parsing of their statement. Holding your nose helps a little.

After Pope Benedict surprised the world Monday by announcing his resignation effective 2/28, the political action group Catholycs For Choice issued a press release. Now, it’s your standard boilerplate, but I thought it’d be fun to translate it from Catholycese into normal English. Let’s go!

“It will be nothing short of a miracle if the next papal conclave

Jon O'Brien - who has worked for the Irish Family Planning Association and International Planned Parenthood Federation

produces a good leader,” said Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice. “Pope Benedict XVI and John Paul II stacked the College of Cardinals with ultraconservatives. This means that it is highly likely that they will elect somebody very like them.

Translation: “I’m a jerk,” said Jon O’Brien, president of Catholycs for Choice. “And I hated everything Pope Benedict XVI and John Paul II ever did. Unfortunately, the next pope is going to be Catholic.”

“The Catholic church and the 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide would like a pope who better reflects the way that they live their faith. We want a pope who understands the needs of Catholics—and the rest of the world—today. He would be a leader with a vision, one that Catholics and all the world’s citizens so desperately need.

Translation: “My group, and the world, doesn’t want a Catholic pope. It’s time for a non-Catholic one.”

“Instead, we are likely to get a leader who runs the Vatican as it has been run for the past few decades—a business-as-usual leader, who will continue to condemn contraception, abortion, LGBT individuals and all those who support them. We expect another pontiff who gives no backing for policymakers who rightfully serve all their constituents equally and do not feel compelled to enshrine Catholic teachings into civil codes. It would be refreshing if we moved away from the culture of impunity that has not held bishops to account for shielding sex-abusing priests, but I do not hold out much hope for that, either.

Translation: “If we get a Catholic pope, we’re going to do everything in our power to undermine him and those who support him. Because like I said earlier, I’m a jerk.”

“It is, however, reassuring that the pope has taken the mature decision to resign. While Benedict has not gone against the grain during his papacy, the fact that he is the first pope in 600 years to choose to leave office is perhaps a sign of a maturing approach to governance.”

Translation: “It’s too bad Benedict didn’t resign earlier, or just die. But this is better than nothing, I suppose.”

There you go – the thing to remember with these people, is that they use no subtlety, no reflection, no humility. They are as transparent as glass. Unfortunately, because so many Catholics are poorly catechized, the things they say sound reasonable and seem sensible. Well, so did the serpent in Eden, and we know where that got us.

Once you boil away the rhetoric, and strip away the puffery, you’re left with lies. Pure and simple.

“Ultraconservatives”? What’s this man smoking, and where can I get some? I can name maybe half a dozen Cardinals between the two of them that constitute “ultraconservatives” and not one of them has a shot at the Papacy. Are we forgetting that Roger Mahony (ROGER MAHONY!!!) of the Klingon Kathedral got his red hat from JPII?

O’brien’s ignorance of Catholicism is on display.
– He refuses to acknowledge or accept that Christ conferred on His apostles and their successors the teaching office and promised them His divine assistance.
– He refuses to acknowledge or accept that The Magisterium cannot err in the preserving and announcing of revealed doctrine.
– He cannot accept that the Holy Spirit exerts His influence on the Church and prevents Her from giving any decision contrary to the truths taught by Christ.
– He refuses to acknowledge that the infallibility of the Church is attributed to God’s special providence over Her.
– He also erroneously sees the Church as a trendy clubhouse whose policies change with the whims of time, culture, and fashion. If that were true, then we can say that the virtue of honesty changes with culture. Virtue, truth, and the deposit of Faith, like the virtue of honesty, are the same today, yesterday, and forever. The Holy Spirit Himself is the guardian of the Catholic Church which safeguards the deposit of Faith for Her members for all earthly existence.
–

He is representative of a truly pitiful lot. How sad that so many self-proclaimed Catholics are incapable of seeing the holiness of a man like Pope Benedict – and thus incapable of gratitude to God. And how sad that they will be incapable of sharing in the joy of the Church when we all welcome our next Holy Father. I much prefer my sorrow at losing Pope Benedict to their perpetual sadness.

“The Catholic Church and the 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide would like a pope who better
reflects the way that they live their faith…” blah blah blah.

Mr. O’Brien and his fetid little organization presume to speak for me and all other Catholics
worldwide? Amazing, given the loathsome creature never asked my opinion, and I’d venture
the toad never asked the opinion of anyone else for whom he’s presuming to speak. One might
assume that he’s speaking for the membership of his ridiculous organization, except that it isn’t
a membership organization– it is simply a front with a deceptive name, taking funding from the
likes of the Playboy Foundation. I suppose his press release is worded the way it is because the
truth sounds so pathetic–“Mr. Hefner and I would like a pope that reflects how the two of us
choose to live”.

“Pope Benedict XVI and John Paul II stacked the College of Cardinals with ultraconservatives. This means that it is highly likely that they will elect somebody very like them.”

The first time I read something similar to this in a liberal “news” article yesterday, it took me a minute or two realize that they meant it as a criticism.

I think before I realized their intentions, I sighed a breath of relief and felt a sense of comfort; another Pope “very like” the last 2? Wonderful! Not that JPII and BXVI are really anything alike, but what they have in common is that they have upheld the teachings of Christ and the Church. Again, wonderful news!

Ah, yes, Jon O’Brien and his ilk. They have already decided what they want to do and are just so desperate that “Daddy” will say its okay. What perverse need for Daddy approval. Sad, I would say. Proof that you are only young once, but you can always be immature.

Weetabix, I read it the same, the actual statements were so weird and way out I thought they were th “translations”! What baffles me is just how bad your catechesis has to have been to find this stuff at all credible! After all, we can all read, no? I pulled out Humanae Vitae ( yes, it was on my Mum’s bookshelf) when I was 13 and have been studying it ever since, always so much to ponder in that document….
I think lack of sformation begins with a lack of will. If we really want to know the truth about something we look for it and these days we can find th good stuff so easily (as well as the bad).

“He would be a leader with a vision, one that Catholics and all the world’s citizens so desperately need.”

Yes. He would set his sights on the heretics and start cleaning house, from the top down, until all of them were removed, fled, or converted. Please do the job.

Sigh. The thing I hate most about the Holy Father’s abdication is having to listen to all of the liberal twits declaring, solemnly, that the next pope must be a heretic liberal just like themselves. They never say “We want a man who believes in God, and in all that the Church teaches, and who will teach us the true way of Christ.”

Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement of his resignation of the papacy had barely been digested on Monday before the press began their search for controversy and ratings.
Students at Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles) hoped the new pope wouldn’t continue Church teaching on gay marriage and other issues. Listening to these students, it was obvious that their catechesis in our Faith is severely deficient – if they received any instruction at all (they obviously aren’t receiving much at LMU).
Then there are the Catholic university religion and theology professors who were asked for their “insights.” Though many were careful not to express too much glee, many seemed to hope that the pope’s resignation will herald a new way of doing things in the Vatican.
There are those who really can’t help themselves, however. These Catholic “experts” don’t have the courtesy or grace to state what good things the pope has accomplished in just eight years, but they have to comment on what they see through their rose colored glasses. A case in point is from the University of Dayton website by the Chair of Religious Studies.
“Benedict’s mixed legacy, and the next pope
“The legacy of Benedict XVI will be mixed. I have seen that like his predecessor’s, Benedict’s project of conservative reform has attracted many young people toward a renewed sense of their Catholic identity. Yet, for every student so attracted by this vision, I find four or five who have little use for a Catholicism that seems focused in this country on opposing same-sex marriage or contraception to the apparent exclusion of all else. They do not find in his project any plausible way of life in response to their pressing concerns and often unspoken hopes.”
“Might it be time to hope for that rarest of gifts, an able administrator of the church’s positive legacy who can also begin the daunting work of addressing the concrete problems of the church’s internal life?”
Suffice it to say that the problem is readily identifiable in higher education and, if his (doubtful) “statistics” are remotely correct, it is uncertain that it would ever change in his classroom.
Briefly searching the internet, there were very few Catholic schools at any level that made notice of Pope Benedict’s announcement. That says a lot, too.

“Yet, for every student so attracted by this vision, I find four or five who have little use for a Catholicism that seems focused in this country on opposing same-sex marriage or contraception to the apparent exclusion of all else. They do not find in his project any plausible way of life in response to their pressing concerns and often unspoken hopes.”

Well, Catholicism has very little use for them. Pressing concerns? Ha. Kids not even wet behind the ears. Their pressing concerns? How self-centered. Why won’t someone, just once tell these spoiled brats to shut up?

Well, he’s no, like, Innocent III, obviously. But he is the most conservative and orthodox Pope we probably could’ve asked for.

On the other hand I’m definitely amused that people think of JPII as some kind of reactionary, when he was elected precisely to keep Giuseppe Siri from becoming Pope Pius XIII! But then, moderns never did have much perspective.

The Church, like God, does not change. The Church and God do not follow society (as it swirls along the sides of the bowl toward the drain). If these so-called catholics for murdering innocent unborn children and those who seek a sodomite redefinition of “marriage” have evolved or changed or become enlightened or whatever euhpemism one wants to use, they are wrong. We can only be moving closer to God or farther away. If these groups find themselves moving farther away from God (and the Holy Father), guess who moved?

“Translation: ‘I’m a jerk.’ I can’t stop laughing! Especially when I look at the picture of the jerk!

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